


A Friend In Need

by GoldandFeathers



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, a dettlaff character exploration, mildly hinted past regis/dettlaff but its really not integral and pretty open to reading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 00:06:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13512585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldandFeathers/pseuds/GoldandFeathers
Summary: Following Dettlaf in the transition between an old life that fell through and a new one as we know him. This idea was just stuck in my head and I can't just sit here and hope someone else writes it, so apologies because I don't know I conveyed it well, but I hope the idea might influence others too in their own headcanons.





	A Friend In Need

-

 

An overgrown path spread before and behind him. Trees rose around the road, and ferns had begun to break the road itself; it was a path rarely followed. Dark clouds hung in the sky and had begun to make good on their promise of rain. He walked steadily and silently over the damp ground, in no real rush to find the cave and shelter he was seemingly searching for. He was travelling at a slow and deliberate pace away from the town he had lived in for years now, headed nowhere. Headed away from frustrations, and pasts, and people, and the frustrations and pasts _with_ people.

 

How he had managed to live there so long escaped him now. He had settled in with the intention to disappear into the background, observe and not be seen, but he cared too much to leave well enough alone. Help was welcome, at first. People began to approach him, tentatively at first, but soon it seemed to become a cacophony of demands by people who needed nothing. He trudged the path sullenly, no one could demand things of him here. Until they knew who he was.

 

-

 

He settled into a small rock nook, too small to truly call a cave. The rain poured on the ground around him as he set his head back against the wall and tried to focus on the sound. Frustration welled in his throat, delayed in his search for _whatever_ it was he was trying to find... he didn't really know. A dark and rumbling thunder rolled in his thoughts, challenging the sky. They said he had helped the wrong person, kept the wrong company. A debt was owed and now he was going to be the one to pay it -- in blood they said. A statement he irony of which he imagined they would never know. He disappeared like a small cloud of mist, and now he was out here. He didn’t know why he was here specifically, but this felt like the direction he should be going. As far from people as he could stray. They could not know him, could not understand him. Too many complications. Too many problems.

 

Yet the silence only made it worse, there was nowhere for his dissatisfaction to go and nowhere for his feet to take him. The silence filled itself with his thoughts. He wanted away from them. His brow furrowed and his teeth grit, he raised his hand from the ground and held his temples. Why was he even here?

 

- 

 

Through the now steady pour of rain, he was disturbed from his silent ranting by a sharp sound striking into the back of his head. Sound? Thought? Presence. He tried to focus on the presence, apprehension peaking. He knew this feeling, who it was, he had felt it before. He wracked his brain to remember who this was, who this feeling belonged to. A faint memory settled on him of a vampire he hadn’t intended to see again. Emiel the vampire who he had crossed paths with many times, in fact, never leaving on good terms.

 

Emiel had intrigued him at first, but the man had been incorrigible, caring for little other than base desires and drinking, flitting from one social to another, far too much drinking -- far too many instances that they should drink together as well. Dettlaff’s nose crinkled to meet his brow. He hadn’t anticipated on running into such an annoyance out here as well, whatever he had intended for these travels, it was not that. Frustration welled, all he wanted was to be alone.

 

But why did he feel him now?

 

He found himself asking out loud, although even by a vampires ears he wouldn’t have been heard. His old troubles were forgotten as new ones replaced them, as he set out toward the thoughts he could feel. Memories mostly of drunken debauchery, impropriety, irresponsibility -- the scowl hadn’t left his face. His anger mounted, building on itself, first to be wandering so fruitlessly and moreover to then be interrupted by _Emiel_ of all people. Frustration bubbled and popped and he ground his teeth.

 

He scaled the stairs into a broken and abandoned castle, no room in his head to ask why it was here or what had happened, itching instead to confront him. Vent even a small amount of his troubles to even an old and distant cause. He cast around searching for the vampire he could hear -- and stopped dead in his tracks. His tight fist dropped. His ready tongue stilled. The sense he had of another, the feeling of utter dread permeated the air around him. The silence smothered him. Blood vibrated in the glass in front of him, Emiel’s blood. He hadn’t thought what he had expected -- why Emiel would have been out here -- this wasn’t it.

 

This was probably what Emiel deserved, truthfully. So many unnecessary deaths mark his hands, so little care he had spared for countless people, how many he had used and discarded. His terrible decisions had taken him where they lead, and this spared any vampire having to be the one to deal with him. He had been self-absorbed, selfish, and self-gratifying. Infuriatingly oblivious. Dettlaff stood in silence.

 

He _could_ leave him. No would fault him for it.

 

He _should_ leave him even.

 

Actions have consequences. Clearly, Emiel’s had caught up with him. This is simply how the world works. He had enough problems on his own. He didn’t need to welcome one more back into his life, after everything that had been done? Too much history, too many mistakes. That bridge had burned rather spectacularly -- hadn’t it? But before… and now?

 

 _Could_ he leave him?

 

“…”. Silence resonated, reflecting back to him from the glimmering glass in front of him.

 

Here was Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, fool that he was, and who else would help?


End file.
